Who wrote this: Kalend is our own app and it is the first of the 9 entries below. We list it first deliberately, because it is what we would use, and you should read it with that in mind. It is judged on the same fields as everything else and carries its own stated drawbacks, including that it is iPhone only and still in development rather than on the App Store. There are no affiliate links on this page.
Kalend is our own app and we have listed it first, so read that entry knowing who wrote it. Everything else here is judged on the same three questions, and Kalend is judged on them too. This is not a list of good task apps in general. It is a list for someone who already runs their week in Todoist on an iPhone, has the renewal date coming up, and wants to know what actually breaks if they leave.
Three things decide whether a move works. First, where the data lives once you have cancelled, because a task list you cannot get out of is a subscription with extra steps. Second, whether recurring tasks survive, since repeating chores are usually the bulk of a Todoist setup and the one-off jobs are the smaller half, and at least one app here, Any.do, lists recurring tasks as a paid feature on its own pricing page. Third, what the free tier withholds, because several of these apps are free in the same shape Todoist is free: fine until you hit a project count, a filter count or a sharing limit.
Two facts about Todoist itself are worth having before you decide, both from Todoist's own help centre. A project can be exported as a CSV file from Manage data, though completed tasks are not included in that export, and automatic backups are a paid-plan feature. If you downgrade rather than delete, Todoist says your task data is retained but you drop to five active projects, and anything above that limit becomes view-only. That is the baseline every entry below is being measured against.
At a glance
| App | Best for | Pricing |
|---|---|---|
| Kalend (ours) | Dropping the subscription entirely when the task list is yours alone | Free. No paid tier, no subscription, no in-app purchase, no ads |
| Apple Reminders | Staying inside iCloud and keeping shared lists after you cancel | Free, included with iOS |
| Things 3 | Paying once instead of monthly, if you are all-Apple | One-time purchase, no subscription. Bought separately for each Apple platform |
| TickTick | A like-for-like feature swap if you are willing to keep paying, just less | Free tier plus a subscription, offered monthly or annually |
| Microsoft To Do | Keeping shared lists and a browser at work without paying anything | Free |
| Google Tasks | People whose real inbox and calendar are already Google | Free |
| Any.do | One place for tasks, calendar and a daily plan across phone, desktop and browser | Free tier plus Premium, Family and Teams subscriptions |
| Twos | Folding tasks, notes and a journal into one place instead of a strict task manager | Free tier plus optional subscriptions, with some capabilities sold as one-off unlocks |
| Superlist | Shared projects, if collaboration is the Todoist feature you cannot give up | Free plan plus Basic and Super subscriptions, per person, monthly or yearly |
The apps in detail
Kalend
Ours- Best for
- Dropping the subscription entirely when the task list is yours alone
- Highlights
- Tasks with projects, priorities, due dates and repeating tasks, so the recurring half of a Todoist setup has somewhere to land
- Syncs through your own iCloud. There is no Kalend account to create and no server of ours holding the data
- Offline-first: every feature works with no connection, and changes sync when you reconnect
- Tasks, calendar, habits and a journal in one app, with calendar events read from your existing calendars rather than duplicated
- Pricing
- Free. No paid tier, no subscription, no in-app purchase, no ads
- Watch out
- iPhone and iPad only. There is no Android app, no web version and no Mac or Apple Watch app, so it cannot cover you at a work desktop. Because it syncs through your personal iCloud there is no sharing and no collaboration of any kind, so you cannot assign a task or share a list with anyone. It is also still in development rather than on the App Store, so you cannot install it today.
Apple Reminders
- Best for
- Staying inside iCloud and keeping shared lists after you cancel
- Highlights
- Reminders can repeat daily, weekly or at custom intervals, set with natural language
- Shared lists let everyone with access add or complete reminders, and you can assign reminders to collaborators
- Location triggers fire when you arrive home, get to work or get in the car
- Lists take section headers, and a list can be saved as a template to reuse
- Pricing
- Free, included with iOS
- Watch out
- It is built around Apple's own account and iCloud sync, and the listing covers Apple devices only, so a collaborator on Android or a browser at work is not part of the picture. It is a reminders app rather than a project tool, so Todoist habits such as saved filter views do not have a direct equivalent to move into.
Things 3
- Best for
- Paying once instead of monthly, if you are all-Apple
- Highlights
- To-dos repeat on a schedule you set, either on calendar intervals or after the task is completed
- Things Cloud sync is free and moves changes between iPhone, iPad, Mac and Watch
- Projects take headings and notes, and Areas group ongoing spheres such as Work or Family
- Calendar events appear alongside to-dos in Today and Upcoming, and Mail to Things forwards items in by email
- Pricing
- One-time purchase, no subscription. Bought separately for each Apple platform
- Watch out
- The App Store listing shows no in-app purchases, and the apps are sold per platform, so covering iPhone and Mac means buying twice. There is no web version and no Android version on the product site, so if part of your day happens on a work PC this cannot be your only list.
TickTick
- Best for
- A like-for-like feature swap if you are willing to keep paying, just less
- Highlights
- Recurring tasks are configurable, and tasks sync across devices
- Calendar views are built in, with the grid calendar view listed as a Premium feature
- Checklists, tags, four priority levels, batch editing and custom sorting
- A Pomodoro timer and an Eisenhower Matrix view are included in the app
- Pricing
- Free tier plus a subscription, offered monthly or annually
- Watch out
- The App Store listing puts a lot behind Premium: 999 tasks per list, five reminders per task, list sharing to 29 members, custom smart lists, habit tracking and the grid calendar view. If the reason you are leaving Todoist is the subscription rather than Todoist itself, several of the same limits reappear here in a different shape — though the platform coverage is wider, with apps on Windows, Linux, Android and the web as well as Apple devices.
Microsoft To Do
- Best for
- Keeping shared lists and a browser at work without paying anything
- Highlights
- One-time or recurring due dates and reminders on any task
- Shared lists stay synced as changes are made, and you are notified when someone else edits
- My Day is a daily planner with suggested tasks pulled from your lists
- Lists sync across the web and iOS, Android and Windows devices, and it works with Outlook tasks
- Pricing
- Free
- Watch out
- It is anchored to a Microsoft account and to Microsoft 365 services, so you are trading one company's sync for another's rather than holding the data yourself. The product page lists web, iOS, Android and Windows and does not mention a Mac app, so a Mac at home means using it in a browser.
Google Tasks
- Best for
- People whose real inbox and calendar are already Google
- Highlights
- Task lists with subtasks, so a Todoist project with sub-items has a shape to move into
- Items can be put on repeat for weekly or monthly chores
- A task can be created directly from an email in Gmail, and tasks show in the Gmail side panel
- Tasks sync with Google Calendar so they can be organised by date
- Pricing
- Free
- Watch out
- It needs a Google account, and its web presence is the side panel inside Gmail and Google Calendar rather than a standalone site. The App Store listing covers iPhone and iPad only, and the feature set is deliberately small, so Todoist filters, labels and priority workflows do not carry over.
Any.do
- Best for
- One place for tasks, calendar and a daily plan across phone, desktop and browser
- Highlights
- The free Personal plan covers tasks and lists, reminders, calendar, a daily planner and sync across devices
- Calendar sync with Google Calendar, Outlook and Apple Calendar or iCloud, shown in one view
- Lists can be shared with family or team members, with tasks assigned to others
- Mobile, desktop, web and tablet clients, so a work browser is covered
- Pricing
- Free tier plus Premium, Family and Teams subscriptions
- Watch out
- This is the one to check carefully if you are leaving Todoist over money. The pricing page lists recurring tasks as a Premium feature, alongside location reminders and colour tags, and collaborative workspaces sit on the Teams plan. Recurring tasks are usually the backbone of a Todoist setup, so the free plan may not hold the part you rely on most.
Twos
- Best for
- Folding tasks, notes and a journal into one place instead of a strict task manager
- Highlights
- Notes, to-do lists, reminders and events captured in a single app rather than split across four
- Reminders can be time-based or location-based, for things like a daily 8am prompt
- Repeating reminders and tasks with schedules you set
- A web version exists at twosapp.com, so the phone is not the only way in
- Pricing
- Free tier plus optional subscriptions, with some capabilities sold as one-off unlocks
- Watch out
- The App Store listing sells individual capabilities separately, including alerts, tags, templates, hyperlinks and AI, on top of the Plus subscriptions. Rebuilding a full Todoist setup could mean buying more than one unlock, so work out the total before assuming it is the cheaper option. Its structure is closer to a daily notes app than to projects and filters.
Superlist
- Best for
- Shared projects, if collaboration is the Todoist feature you cannot give up
- Highlights
- The free plan allows unlimited tasks and notes, with up to five private and shared lists
- Up to five people in a shared list on the free plan, with real-time collaboration, task assignment and in-task chat
- Works online and offline, syncing across devices
- Repeatable tasks and infinitely nested subtasks, with tasks and notes kept in the same list
- Pricing
- Free plan plus Basic and Super subscriptions, per person, monthly or yearly
- Watch out
- The free plan caps you at five lists, five collaborators, 25MB uploads and 500MB storage. That ceiling sits very close to Todoist's own five-project free limit, so leaving one for the other moves the limit rather than removing it, and unlimited lists sits on the paid tier.
What is still missing
The category has settled on a shape that makes leaving expensive without ever charging you an exit fee. Two of the free tiers here are metered on something structural — TickTick on tasks per list and share members, Superlist on lists, collaborators and storage — and Any.do gates recurring tasks by feature instead. That is not the same as a feature being missing. A missing feature you can work around. A cap means the app quietly stops accepting the thing you already built, which is exactly what Todoist's downgrade behaviour does when projects above the limit turn view-only. You end up choosing between paying and pruning, and pruning is work.
The second unsolved problem is recurrence. Repeating tasks are the part of a task manager people actually depend on, and they are also the part that travels worst. A CSV export carries a task's text and its date, but a repeat rule is a rule, not a field, and there is no shared format for it between products. Any.do's pricing page lists recurring tasks under Premium rather than the free Personal plan, which is worth knowing before you assume the free tier holds the part you rely on. Before you cancel anything, write down your repeating tasks on paper, because that list is the real migration, not the export file.
The third gap is that ownership and collaboration are still traded against each other, and nobody has solved it. Apps that hold your data on their servers can share lists and give you a browser at work. Apps that keep everything on your own account cannot. Kalend sits firmly on the ownership side of that line, and pays the full price for it: it syncs through your personal iCloud, so there is no sharing, no assigning, no shared project, no web access, and it is iPhone only and still in development rather than on the App Store. If you share a grocery list with a partner or run projects with colleagues, that trade is not available to you, and an app that keeps your data private is not a replacement for one that keeps your team in sync.
Common questions
How do I export my tasks from Todoist before I cancel?
Todoist documents a per-project CSV export: open a project, click the three dots at the top right, choose Manage data, then Export as CSV. Completed tasks are not included in that export, so if your history matters, capture it separately. Automatic backups, which store up to 21 ZIP archives of your active projects as CSV files, are a paid-plan feature, so take one before the subscription ends rather than after. Completed tasks and archived projects are not included in a backup either. Sources: https://www.todoist.com/help/articles/import-or-export-a-project-as-a-csv-file-in-todoist-YC8YvN and https://www.todoist.com/help/articles/introduction-to-backups-ywaJeQbN
What happens to my data if I downgrade Todoist instead of deleting my account?
Todoist says task-related data is retained, but you lose the ability to add or edit certain things, including task duration, custom reminders, deadlines and member roles. You are limited to five active projects, and any project above that limit becomes view-only, meaning you cannot edit it or add tasks to it. New backups stop being generated, though backups created before cancelling remain available. Source: https://www.todoist.com/help/articles/what-happens-when-i-downgrade-my-plan-dOhlH9qQe
Which Todoist alternatives keep recurring tasks on the free tier?
Apple Reminders repeats daily, weekly or at custom intervals at no cost. Microsoft To Do supports one-time or recurring due dates and reminders and is free. Google Tasks lets you put items on repeat. Kalend supports repeating tasks and has no paid tier at all. The one to check before switching is Any.do, whose pricing page lists recurring tasks under Premium rather than the free Personal plan.
Is there a Todoist alternative that does not need an account?
Kalend is the one on this list built that way: it syncs through your own iCloud, so there is no account to create and no server of ours holding the data, but it is iPhone only, has no sharing at all, and is not on the App Store yet. Apple Reminders is the practical version of the same idea, using your existing Apple account and iCloud. Things 3 syncs through a Things Cloud account, and TickTick, Microsoft To Do, Google Tasks, Any.do, Twos and Superlist each sync through an account with the company that makes them, so check the sign-in step before you commit.
Can I replace Todoist without paying again on my Mac or work browser?
It depends which trade you accept. Microsoft To Do is free and syncs across the web, Windows, Android and iOS. Google Tasks is free too, but in a browser it appears as a side panel inside Gmail and Google Calendar rather than as its own web app. Things 3 is a one-time purchase rather than a subscription, but it is sold separately per Apple platform and has no web or Android version. Superlist covers macOS, iOS, Android and web, though its free plan stops at five lists and five collaborators.